Fake News

[Speaker to Animals]

We don't need journalism? Yeah, Hastur, I'd prefer it if we did not get all our info about what our governments do, from the government itself, nor all our info about what corporations or banks or organizations do, from the those entities themselves.

Except that is exactly what journalism is, Bjorn.

[pineapplemike]

Greenwald put together a solid list, I had forgotten about several of these

The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump/Russia Story
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/20/bey ... sia-story/

10. RT Hacked Into and Took Over C-SPAN (Fortune)
9. Russian Hackers Invaded the U.S. Electricity Grid to Deny Vermonters Heat During the Winter (WashPost)
8. A New, Deranged, Anonymous Group Declares Mainstream Political Sites on the Left and Right to be Russian Propaganda Outlets and WashPost Touts its Report to Claim Massive Kremlin Infiltration of the Internet (WashPost)
7. Trump Aide Anthony Scaramucci is Involved in a Russian Hedge Fund Under Senate Investigation (CNN)
6. Russia Attacked U.S. “Diplomats” (i.e. Spies) at the Cuban Embassy Using a Super-Sophisticated Sonic Microwave Weapon (NBC/MSNBC/CIA)
5. Trump Created a Secret Internet Server to Covertly Communicate with a Russian Bank (Slate)
4. Paul Manafort Visited Julian Assange Three Times in the Ecuadorian Embassy (Guardian/Luke Harding)
3. CNN Explicitly Lied About Lanny Davis Being Its Source – For a Story Whose Substance Was Also False: Cohen Would Testify that Trump Knew in Advance About the Trump Tower Meeting (CNN)
2. Robert Mueller Possesses Internal Emails and Witness Interviews Proving Trump Directed Cohen to Lie to Congress (BuzzFeed)
1. Donald Trump Jr. Was Offered Advanced Access to the WikiLeaks Email Archive (CNN/MSNBC)

[BjornP]

We don't need journalism? Yeah, Hastur, I'd prefer it if we did not get all our info about what our governments do, from the government itself, nor all our info about what corporations or banks or organizations do, from the those entities themselves.

Except that is exactly what journalism is, Bjorn.

No.

the activity or profession of writing for newspapers, magazines, or news websites or preparing news to be broadcast.

Unless you want a future where only the State tells you what information you "need", you need, indeed you would want journalism. Can we agree that journalism as it is now, is bad? Sure. We can also agree that some wars being fought are bad though, but does that mean you will never ever again need a military? What about public education? Does a bad public education sector, mean kids should never enjoy education at all? No, well, maybe then fixing what's broken is better than just dismissing it entirely? If something does not work as intendend you try and fix it or at least support those who try.

If the media market is fucked up, your expecations for a better product, will increase the supply of a better product. If you have no expectations, or keep the same low expectations, you naturally deserve nothing or nothing better. And expecting that there can exist no one in the whole wide world, who could do research to counter government narratives, factcheck government "facts", etc... is lazy of you as a citizen and as a consumer. IOW, the least you can do is expect better. However. Since you DO link to news stories yourself from time to time, you must be assumed to trust at least that news source to be trustworthy. So, there you go, you're already past the first step.

So, no, StA. You are not doomed to only get your facts from those with an interest in giving you only their side in it.

People who report on, analyze, interview and seek out sources of information, who report critically on government policy, or the direction of society, or the actions of organizations.... no matter if they have a formal education in, they'd be doing journalism. The idea that only the corporations, ie. the newspapers, the media sites, the tv networks are what journalism is, is what's clouding some of you guys' minds. Unless you just want to blindly trust government, you want- and in all likelihood, already consume - products of journalism. That story that you posted where someone did some (basic) factchecking on the NA (supposed) Vietnam vet's background story, falls under journalism for example.

[Speaker to Animals]

I don't need to opine about some nebulous future where governments and corporations control journalism. That is what we have right now, Bjorn.

Here in the US, all television news is controlled by something like six corporations.

The major newspapers have a revolving door with the intelligence community and the democratic party.

The "conservative" newspapers are corporatist papers that push the agenda of large corporations.

That leaves you with blogs, which I am not sure you would want to elevate to the status of your sacred journalism either.

Every NPC in America gets their information straight from the Deep State and corporate news outlets. Every last one of them.

[BjornP]

I don't need to opine about some nebulous future where governments and corporations control journalism. That is what we have right now, Bjorn.

Here in the US, all television news is controlled by something like six corporations.

The major newspapers have a revolving door with the intelligence community and the democratic party.

The "conservative" newspapers are corporatist papers that push the agenda of large corporations.

That leaves you with blogs, which I am not sure you would want to elevate to the status of your sacred journalism either.

Every NPC in America gets their information straight from the Deep State and corporate news outlets. Every last one of them.

You keep equating journalism, the profession, with media companies, the place of employment. I am talking about journalism as a profession, as a discipline. Those two are not the same thing. Maybe its those US media companies' complete dominance, and that they've taken to only call people who were employed by their companies "journalists", that makes you think like that. But that would be like only calling someone a lawyer if they worked in a major, fancy, New York office and voted Democrat. Does not make sense.

Who controls journalism, is not what defines what journalism is.
Who owns (most, or even all) media outlets, do not define what journalism is.

When you imagine, when you accept the premise that "journalism" is solely defined and controlled by what all US TV news and the six corps behind them, want it to be, you're surrendering. You're surrendering the meaning of a word simply because you perceive (fairly or not) that they are too powerful.

If the information everyone gets comes from the Deep State, and from those six corporations who own most/all the media picture, that's not an argument that that...package is "journalism". That's just a description of who dominates the journalistic picture in the US. At this particular moment. Yet, surely somewhere in the US, there exists some student of journalism, or simply someone who learned the trade independently, who is capable and willing, and who is willing to be part of a media voice independent of the Deep State, independent of the six corps, independent of all those interests, no? And surely, then, there are enough of you to pay that guy to do a story that you feel isn't covered by the MSM? Well, then set up some system to pay him by the story, like crowdfunding, and you could have the beginnings of some independent journalism. At least just think about it?

[Speaker to Animals]

Bjorn: nobody in journalism is objective and nobody in journalism ever was objective. Journalism is a political weapon. It's a tool used to manipulate the masses. That's all it is.

There has never been a time when we had independent journalism. The people who controlled the presses eventually took over the nations. That's the Enlightenment in a nutshell.

[BjornP]

Bjorn: nobody in journalism is objective and nobody in journalism ever was objective. Journalism is a political weapon. It's a tool used to manipulate the masses. That's all it is.

There has never been a time when we had independent journalism. The people who controlled the presses eventually took over the nations. That's the Enlightenment in a nutshell.

Nobody can be a 100% objective, nor should anyone want to when it comes to describing politics and society. Simply in picking which news is relevant, you're making a subjective call of relevance. The goal should be to be as objective as possible, not be a robot.

Your definition of "independent" makes little to no sense. You seem to be arguing against self-determination on basis that self-determination "eventually" might give you power or influence. Sure, if I created a Social Democrat-leaning newspaper that somehow turned out to be prosperous, it could influence society, which would influence politics...

..and that's bad, how? Say if it was your reactionary newspaper, instead, and how would it be bad for you to gain more political influence? More to the point, how does that negate the value of or point of journalism? Assuming you don't just want to be force fed Deep State propaganda, you must want some alternate source of information to give you some sort of "independent" information. Does journalism somehow become not-journalism, the second your side start to gain a little influence? Journalism can become a political weapon, yes. And if competing ideas are banned from competing in the same marketplace as the ideas succesful media promulgate, sure, that's a bad direction. But, then it's the dominance that's the enemy.
If the politics of the time are keeping you down, if the politics of the time make their media paint you in a dishonest, counter-factual spotlight, you wouldn't want someone on your side, speaking truth to that power? Or do you simply don't want power or influence in your own society? (Yeah no, I don't really expect it's that..)

As for political weapon. Is that really true in all and every case, StA? Do you read your local, smalltown paper? Are all the news there what you'd call a "political weapon", too? All of the news in it?

[Speaker to Animals]

Can you please answer the actual point I made?


The journalists took over nations. The same faction that controls journalism controls corporations and businesses. Most television media is owned by multinational corporations or, in the case of Europeans, nothing but state propaganda. The local news stations in America are mostly controlled by a single corporation that is run by a neocon. American media in particular is nothing but a false narrative that the only real political divisions are between two kinds of liberals (neocons and "left" liberals). But they are all fucking neoliberals.

The people who ran the presses in the Enlightenment tended to end up running the nations. Nothing has changed. There now is a revolving door between "journalism" and government. Indeed, in America there is a longstanding relationship between the CIA and the newspapers/television media. The entire Russian conspiracy farce was the product of this relationship between the CIA and the media, with a third party intelligence contractor manufacturing the thing with their connections at CNN and other outlets.

Media is a weapon you can use for good or ill. It's not an inherently good thing any more than a stealth bomber is inherently a good thing.

[Speaker to Animals]

Put it this way, if you postulate a thought experiment whereby you take any human civilization in the stage that we were in during the late medieval period (Renaissance), and you wanted a small faction of people with no political power at all to seize control of nations over the course of a century or two, how would you go about it?

You'd utilize the press. That's what you would do. Control the means of mass communication. Disseminate pro-democracy propaganda to foment revolution. Get the revolutions (either violent or gradual). Then control the electoral outcomes by controlling the minds of the commoners.

Until 2016, whoever controlled the means of mass communication controlled the nation. What we are seeing now is them losing control of that because social media and global networking have made their game very difficult to maintain.

The loss of control of information is the end of the Enlightenment, really.

[nmoore63]

Free press is inherently a good thing.